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Vote. Don’t vote. I don’t care. Just stop telling me that Vice President Kamala Harris is going to save democracy.
Do I wish Republicans had nominated a more coherent, principled, competent candidate for the presidency? Of course.
But if anyone is under the impression Democrats tapped such a person, I have news. Spend some time trying to decipher Harris’ swirling, platitude-ridden, incoherent rhetoric, and you will only be further convinced that we live in an idiocracy.
Sure, there are many reasons why a movement conservative might feel uncomfortable voting for former President Donald Trump. I get it. I’m not a fan.
But there are plenty of completely rational reasons to vote for him, as well. First and foremost, the existence of the contemporary Democratic Party.
Liz Cheney, and other Never Trumpers, tell me that the former president poses a uniquely dangerous threat to the Constitution, and thus, I must set aside any policy disagreements with Democrats and put country over politics.
No doubt, this kind of self-glorification feels great, but it doesn’t really comport with reality.
For one thing, most of the left’s scariest warnings about Trump are fiction. I don’t believe The Atlantic when it tells me that Trump is a would-be Hitler. I’m sorry, I don’t believe he’s going to throw all his political enemies in concentration camps. Save the story for the next Mueller investigation.
Considering recent history, in fact, it’s clear to me that the left is far more adept and willing to weaponize the state to punish its enemies.
And I’m not just talking about the unprecedented lawfare launched at Trump. I’m talking about debarring lawyers. I’m talking about raiding the homes of pro-life activists. I’m talking about the spying on Catholic churches and the Justice Department chilling speech by smearing parents who stood up to authoritarian school boards as terrorists.
Moreover, even if Trump acted on his worst instincts, the damage would likely be confined to his own presidency. Trump is about Trump. Harris and Democrats, though, have openly embraced a string of consequential, long-term attacks on the constitutional order. Ones that we can never come back from.
Sorry, I don’t accept that a woman who once complained to CNN’s Jake Tapper that “millions and millions of people” were speaking “without any level of oversight or regulation, and that has to stop” is going to be my champion of the Constitution.
Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, recently argued that there is “no guarantee” for free speech when it came to “misinformation” or “hate speech,” “especially around our democracy.”
If this were a properly functioning republic, Walz would be thrown to the curb.
No honest person could possibly believe Democrats are better for free expression.
Let’s not forget either that Harris once promised to bypass Congress and sign an executive order seizing rifles from millions of law-abiding Americans. Though Democrats like to pretend otherwise, the Second Amendment is still part of the Constitution.
Indeed, Harris is in no position to lecture anyone about any governing norms. She frequently praises Biden for ignoring courts and “forgiving” student loans by forcing taxpayers to foot the bill. She supports trashing the Senate filibuster, empowering slim majorities to destroy any semblance of federalism.
Harris has backed bills that would have overturned thousands of state laws, allowing national Democrats to strip state election-security measures, make abortion legal until crowning, compel religious hospitals to perform gender-transition surgeries, shut down religious foster-care organizations and many other outrages.
None of this is to even speak of her efforts to destroy the Supreme Court. Harris, who gleefully took part in the vile smearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, supports packing the court — the most serious attack on the judicial branch since President Franklin Roosevelt’s effort in the 1930s.
Senate Democrats say it is “virtually certain” they will pass a “Supreme Court reform” bill that, among other assaults on the judicial branch, will empower legislators to strip individual justices of their power.
This is all just blatantly authoritarian stuff.
Right now — in part, because of Trump — the court is the only institution in the United States that properly functions. There is no telling what kind of arsonist Harris and Democrats would install.
At the very least, I know Trump has a track record of not only nominating decent jurists but sticking with them under massive pressure.
It is odd, indeed, that Democrats, who support price controls, state mandates and a slew of other economic intrusions that force corporations to bend to their will, are constantly warning us about the specter of “fascism.”
We have no clue how the Trump presidency plays out. Trumpism is whatever Trump says it is whenever he feels like it. It might well be a disaster. But Harris offers me nothing.
David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist.